Speech is a skill in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and is one of the six skills that falls under The Thief play-style. This skill is a combination of both Speechcraft and Mercantile skills of previous Elder Scrolls and replaces them. Speech may also help with quests by unlocking special dialogue interactions, including Intimidate, Mock, Brawl and more.

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Speech directly affects the prices paid when buying from and selling to merchants, even without the assorted perks. At 0 speech, merchants sell items for 3 times their base price, and buy for a third of their base price. At 100 speech, merchants will sell items for half their base price and buy them for twice as much. Alternatively, Speech can be used to persuade people into doing things or divulging crucial information. Bribes made are also governed by Speech.

Can invest 500 gold with a shopkeeper to increase their available gold permanently †

Intimidation

Speech 70, Persuasion

Intimidation is twice as successful

Fence

Speech 90, Investor

Can barter stolen goods with any merchant the Dragonborn has invested in

Master Trader

Speech 100, Fence

Every merchant in the world gains 1000 gold for bartering

† The way Investor seems to work is that the 500 gold ends up in the shopkeeper's personal inventory rather than the store inventory. Also, it seems like any gold in the shopkeeper's personal inventory is added to the store gold when calculating how much they can buy. This means two things:

can be pickpocketed from them. This means the store will not have 500 when their inventory refreshes. Stealing from them does not lower their disposition.

can be reverse-pickpocketed onto them to increase the investment effect. Also, placing gold is much easier than taking it. This can create shopkeepers with a very high amount of gold.

The speech skill increase depends on the base value of the item traded or the difficulty of the bribe or persuasion. When selling items, it is not actually required to receive any gold, only that the transaction takes place. The skill increase only occurs once per transaction. In order to optimize leveling, expensive items in groups of 6 or more should be sold individually, rather than all at once.

Members of the Thieves Guild have the option to bribe guards when minor crimes are committed. Repeatedly committing small crimes, such as trespassing or pickpocketing, and bribing guards to look the other way can help level Speech quickly. spent bribing a guard can be pickpocketed back easily with a high enough pickpocket skill.

In Dawnstar, Ahkari's merchant inventory can be accessed through a glitch (see page for details). After placing all gold in the chest, all the items in inventory can be sold to the merchant. Doing this will give back the gold put into the chest. Afterward, the items can be retrieved from the chest and the process repeated forever. The net is no change to gold or items, but an increase in Speech skill.

Similar to Method One, after progressing far enough into the Thieves Guild questline, the Dragonborn can commit a minor crime, such as failed pickpocketing or stealing. Once the crime has been committed, the Dragonborn can go up to a guard and initiate the "Wait, I know you." dialogue. Any option (aside from resisting or submitting to arrest) should be available to persuade them to overlook it. Though the guards says they won't let it slide the next time, they will never attack or arrest the Dragonborn (of course, if the submit or resist dialogue option was not chosen).

NOTE: This will not remove the bounty, it will just stop the conversation peacefully, while slightly improving speech skill. This can then be done to all of the guards in a hold, but it should not be repeated on the same guard, as this can cause the option to go away. Instead, all the guards should be cycled through with the dialogue. This is especially useful at medium-high levels, since nothing has to be paid or sold, and the risk is practically zero.

During the quest "The Black Star," the Dragonborn can continually Intimidate Nelacar in the Inn in Winterhold. When he asks "Who sent you?" choose the Intimidate option and immediately exit the conversation. This can be repeated indefinitely.

At anytime the Dragonborn can enter the Black-Briar Meadery where you will encounter the shop attendant Ungrien. Confront him and then repeatably persuade him to tell the truth about how he feels about his employer Maven Black-Briar. This glitch can be utilized to achieve a skill level of 100 in speech.

Note:

1. You must have at least a speech level of 25 to make him cough up the truth, if not then you can use the bribery option until persuasion is effective. If persuasion is not effective then Speech is not increased.

2. This bug has been apparently fixed by means of version 1.9, however, if in offline mode on Xbox 360 or you have neglected to accept this patch or any before it. Then the glitch will be operational.